Kishor Piraji Kharat takes charge as MD & CEO of IDBI Bank
- Kishor Piraji Kharat has assumed charge as managing director & chief executive director of IDBI Bank with effect from August 14, 2015.
- He was earlier posted as executive director of Union Bank of India. Kharat is a graduate in commerce and law, and is a certified associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers.
SBI undertakes initiatives to enhance employees' performance, productivity
- Largest lender State Bank of India has taken a slew of HR initiatives to help its over 2.3 lakh employees evaluate their performance and enhance productivity.
- That includes assigning targets for frontline staff and designing a career development path.
- "Including the frontline, everybody will have targets and we are trying to give them the means to check their performance on a monthly basis," Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya has said
Axis Bank eyes 50,000 NFC-powered point of sales machines by 2015-end
- Private lender Axis Bank has said a fifth of its point of sales (POS) machines will be NFC-enabled by the end of this year, which will help users pay at shops without going through the tedious process of swiping and entering a PIN.
- "We believe that in order to make the contactless mode of payments a reality, we need changes in the ecosystem. Some 50,000 of our POS machines will be enabled to accept payments under the new system," President, retail lending and payments, Jairam Sridharan, told.
- This is how it works. At a near-field communication (NFC)-enabled POS, the customer has to bring his card within a certain range of the machine and the debit happens automatically from the linked account.
- Finance Minister Arun Jaitley inaugurated the second edition of the State Bank of India's Banking & Economics Conclave here on Tuesday.
- SBI said the theme of this year's conclave is 'India's growth story : What needs to be done?'
- The event seeks to stimulate informed discussion amongst distinguished industrialists, regulators, policymakers, academicians and professionals to get their insights on thought provoking topics pertaining to the current banking and economic scenario and come up with an agenda for driving India's growth momentum.
- CEO panel will deliberate on 'Agenda to rev up growth'
- Judiciary panel will try to understand the constraints that result in delayed court procedures and how a middle path between pure economic and commercial imperatives may be achieved.
- CFO panel is themed on 'Capital for banks: Hindering growth or hindered by market?'
- Last panel will be of economists where the discussion will revolve around 'Economics beyond CPI & repo rate'.
State Bank of Travancore launches new mobile ATM facility
- State Bank of Travancore has launched a new mobile ATM in Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala's capital.
- The ATM is installed in a mobile air-conditioned van equipped with uninterrupted power, CCTV and guarded security with satellite connectivity.
- The mobile ATM, which also serves as an Information Kiosk to public to help them know about banking products and services, moves from place to place in the city, delivering customers safe and swift banking.
- The public sector bank major launched the mobile ATM as an Independence Day gift to city dwellers.
- State Bank of India (SBI) will launch its m-wallet 'SBI Buddy' that will compete directly with ICICI Bank's Pocket, HDFC Bank's PayZapp and Paytm, a market-place-cum payments' company.
- M-wallets are similar to savings bank accounts that can be accessed through mobile phones.
- In most cases, an individual has to download the merchant's app such as Flipkart or Amazon, and use their debit or credit cards while making payments, or their mobile wallets such as MobiWik or Citrus.
- But in the case of SBI m-wallet, it would be seamless process. Once a customer opens the m-wallet Buddy, he/she will have access to thousands of merchants in the travel, hotel, entertainment and fashion space, and can even make remittances without downloading their app.
- Andhra Bank is expanding its activities in Kerala so as to enhance the bank's total business to Rs 5000 crore in the the state in the next three years.
- At present the bank has 32 branches and a total business of Rs 2000 crore in Kerala.
- The bank has targeted 75 branches in the state by the end of three years. The focus will be on retail loans particularly in the SME sector. Of the total credit exposure in the state , 50% is for SMEs currently. The bank has been able to reduce the gross NPA ratio to 1.94 by the end of June, 2015 from 3.45 in a year in Kerala.
